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Opinion: Pope and Change

Columnist Dan Henninger on the lessons of Pope Benedict's extraordinary life.

This transcript has been automatically generated and may not be 100% accurate.

... welcome to Opinion Journal why Mary Kissel ... Benedict the sixteenth left the Vatican in these last few hours ... the final time as pontiff is historic moment ... where will have ... to live in Crocs is short order ... first what lessons can we learn from this Pope's ... very extraordinary life ... Wonderland Columnist Dan Henninger is here ... Dan is hard to think of the Pope is an average guy ... but the minute the sixteenth ... why is he was born in Germany forced into the Nazi army ... those experiences ... influence and with what you've learned from that period this line ... well I've The it comes down to a word that is being highlighted today and is so vital message which is the struggle ... I think that of ... that ... Cardinal Ratzinger understood struggle and as Pope he did as well ... and certainly is a German citizen are growing up in that time ... and ... after all you become the leader of the Catholic church this enormous institution all over the world ... and you realize that you have very complex responsibilities Mary ... and what I take away from that it would Benedict accomplished is he understood there was a struggle in Europe for the life of the soul ... and that it was a struggle going on among radical Islamic ... perk up the losses of which was literally a death struggle they were under pressure there ... and Benedict had to deliver these two poles of the Christian life in Europe where it was simply syncing and in his lawnmower was under so much pressure ... parallels here with the experience that he had working so closely with help from Paul the second ... core courses at the forefront of the struggle between ... East and lasts democracy versus communism Missoni mean ... he spent many many years is very close confidant that Pope ... that was uniquely prepared ... thus for those struggles in just outlined ... this is an excellent point because I think that in many ways Benedict was the continuation of John Paul ... and I hope that the next pope ... top honors Benedict sufficiently to create up an extension of his idea that's the usual point in your here that are good there and I know you share that that that that was far more conservative than ... its worth or more progressive Pope John Paul the second ... I don't think that was quite true ... I think he was he was different but they were essentially doing the same thing ... John Paul was about fighting Soviet communism ... and Benedict has understood that the challenge for Islam is that this is long has tremendous moral self confidence that may be misguided ... but is it the other is a lot of moral self confidence that Islam radical Islam to stand against that the West needs to rediscover its moral soul kitchen Hess to discover there is still ranked ... in moral self confidence now it is simply in a state of kind of moral and sushi and some weakness in Tibetan demonstrate the ultimate moral self confidence by saying ... I'm not serving the church ... the sun must step down to go from that position of power ... we see this all the time were sitting in the middle of your and powerful people ... they like to stay in their jobs ... here is that fuel tantalizing and he's getting Benedict have fully understood that the terms of the struggle ... were so intense know that the church deserve to have ... a whole a leader with enough vitality to be able to carry that struggle forward ... and he saw John Paul at the end of this life struggling physically to keep going ... and he didn't want the church to suffer as a result of being led by a man who simply do not have ... the physical strength to do it ... since then the continuation of John Paul ... and Paul Benedict who might that be ... well I don't know exactly who well ... we might carry on the way I think the Archbishop of Milan ... Arnold school ... Carnell school on is the one who has spent ... more time than any other Cardinal ... doing outreach into the Middle East and trying to engage in Islam in the way that Benedict did if I had to mention ... somebody on my shortlist I think would be Colonel school on the shortlist Cardinals color you're hurting your first one data on this tanning ... and thank you so much for being with us